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Frankly episode 9 of Monstar was torture to watch. We know *gasp*, how could we say that?? Trust us, we’re surprised as well…

The episode just felt so damn long, the characters spent the majority of the time moping around miserably. No one really voicing their thoughts or feelings, no one really doing anything. It felt flat and painfully boring to watch.

Se Yi spent the whole time either crying or saying ‘hmm’ or ‘oh’. The girl needs to expand her vocabulary and remind us why she has two guys fighting over her. At the moment, she’s coming across as this wet, dull girl and nothing like the quirky, confident girl of episodes past. Se Yi, come back please!

Sun Woo/ Se Yi moments are completely cringe worthy. They have no chemistry together at all. We wish the writer would just kill their ‘romantic’ link and focus more on the OTP and Sun Woo with Kim Na Na. Who else had the strong desire to roll their eyes at the hospital scene? Sun Woo couldn’t be more of a kdrama secondary love rival if he tried. School president – check, rich- check, smart/ talented- check and most importantly spends his spare time volunteering in the hospital where he sings to sick kids who adore him – check. Come on, really?

Also Sun Woo’s pathetic excuse of a love confession is right up there on the list of ways not to confess your love to the leading lady. Seriously, when you’re back is turned to her and eyes are on your rival rather than the girl you’re confessing to – does it really count as a love confession? For us we hoped for more, obviously nothing too romantic to sway us away from the OTP, but something better than that!

Seol Chan wasn’t much better, when is he going to man up and tell her how he feels? How is a girl supposed to know how her OTP feels when he blowing hot and cold all the time?

Okay, so we’re calling episode 9 a write off but we’re glad that episode 8 had a few goodies tucked away in it.

At the end of episode 8, all we could think was: now really, is this how you end an episode? We thought this was supposed to be a fun, teen, musical drama – having one of the characters pushed to the point where he’s ready to jump of the school roof is a little harsh?

Don’t get us wrong, it was emotional, intense and captivating viewing and we thoroughly loved it.

The last song was amazing. It broke our hearts, it was just so sad. This was a scene that summed up exactly how horrible bullying can be and how alone a person can feel in such a situation. It felt terribly realistic. Like this situation could happen to any of us. The build up of Do Nam and Kyu Dong’s fractured relationship has been an on going subject through the drama and to finally know the reason why they fell out is welcomed. We’re glad it had enough of an impact to warrant Do Nam’s anger towards Kyu Dong, anything less would have felt anticlimactic.

The writer finally decided to move in the right direction and gave us some cute OTP action. Horray!

Their moments sparkle with chemistry and feel so refreshingly realistic. They have the perfect amount of awkward, unspoken (teen rated) sexual energy to make their moments work so well. Their scenes are like night and day compared to Se Yi’s moments with Sun Woo. We wish the drama had a few more sweet moments between Seol Chan and Se Yi. In reflection they spent an awfully large amount of time fighting and making up. Yes, we know, that’s how OTP’s usually act but this particular couple lacked more cute moments than most dramas, which is a shame because they are adorable together. After episode 9’s kiss, we’ve got our fingers crossed that this OTP stop fighting long enough to actually fall in love.

Other thoughts:

We’re so glad that Ji Woong Ahjussi got a haircut! Finally, that wig was so distracting.

What’s with Eun Ha’s bruises? Oh man, domestic violence/ bullying ect is just too much. She’s such a sweet, likable character. She often has funny, sweet one liners that make us smile. She’s a character that everyone knows in real life. She’s not particularly amazing at something but incredibly likable.

When is Sun Woo going to look at Kim Na Na and fall head over heels in love?? Are we really asking for too much?

While watching the last few episodes of this drama we came to the realisation that this drama is the Korean version of the Disney TV movie Lemonade Mouth. There are so many parallels it’s unreal – misfit, damaged kids brought together through music while taking on the mean popular kids.

Like Lemonade Mouth, we waited in anticipation for the ‘big performance’ where everyone is proven wrong and are pleasantly shocked by the band who everyone thought would be rubbish. However, we’ve got to say we were left rather disappointed by the end of episode 7 and the band’s big show piece. For several weeks now, the drama had been building towards this one moment and frankly it was poor. Okay, the band hardly ever got through a whole practice without someone running off crying or having a tantrum but still… we hoped for so much more. These guys have talent and what we watched was half arsed and dull. It really did look/ sound like something you would see in a school assembly.

Before you say anything, we’re aware that the drama and their performance wasn’t actually about the music but about them evolving and healing through teamwork blah, blah but couldn’t they have done that along with giving us a great musical number???

Aside from hating their performance, we’re loving almost everything else. At this point in the drama, we think we’ve jumped ships. Se Yi and Seol Chan are okay but it’s all about Seon Woo and Kim NaNa.

She’s a gangster’s daughter with a bad reputation and he’s the school’s golden child. We do love when dramas bring opposites together! Their duet in episode 7 was just fabulous viewing, so touching and lovely. He’s gently pushing her to be herself and not be ashamed of where she comes from and she’s blatantly just falling more and more in love with him as each episode passes and frankly we can’t blame her! heheh

Other random thoughts:

There has been no real progress on either bromance fronts, if anything the antagonism has become worse than ever. sigh*

Who else saw a hint of jealousy in Se Yi’s eyes when Seol Chan was fangirling over Kim Nana after he found out she could sing? One word – finally!

Although we may not have watched anything for several months; we still kept tabs on what fandom were watching and blogging about. Come on, we couldn’t go cold turkey altogether, it would be too hard to cope!

Since we returned to dramas, we decided to check out Monstar and fell in love pretty much straight away. The story manages to encompass everything we love about dramas and was just the thing we wanted in our return to dramaland.

A story of a group of misfit kids taking on the popular kids at their own musical game is an old story told a million times in dramas but one we seem to return to time and time again. We can’t resist our underdogs fighting their way to the top. Plus when the characters are so lovable, can you really blame us?

The storyline may be simple but the tone and feel of the drama makes it so easy to get swept up and carried away in the drama. The characters are what transforms this drama from being just another school/ musical drama and makes it something special. They’re an odd group of characters that seem to blend well together despite the unlikelihood of them ever being grouped together.

We’ve got the arrogant superstar as the leading man who lacks social graces and often puts his foot in it – Seol Chan

Sure this character has been portrayed a million times before, we can list at least a dozen characters just like him but we still love him. We concluded that his characterisation is more Jdrama that Kdrama. Jdrama romcom leading men are often more emotional, goofy and you get a deeper impression of their thoughts and feelings under the gruff exterior. Whereas Kdrama leading men can often come across as idiot bastards that need to suffer before they are redeemed and get their HEA.

We like how in this drama the audience is given an insight to his inner thoughts and feelings. Seol Chan may not voice his feelings for the leading lady but as viewers we know exactly what he really thinks. We are given the chance to see that he’s not just a heartless, thoughtless brat but does in fact care about things and people. We like how he’s a musical genius and is often driven by his instincts and feelings rather than rationality. He’s not shy to voice his thoughts even when he should maybe put a sock in it but that’s just another side of personality that we like.

Then we have the beautiful, considerate and tough leading lady — Se Yi

She’s just such a lovable character that it’s hard to believe that a viewer wouldn’t like her. She’s got this quietly strong persona while appearing incredibly delicate and sweet.

She comes across rather quirky in this drama as well. Frankly we’re not fans of the ‘quirky’ leading lady character as it’s usually overacted and becomes quite cliché. However, she’s such a well rounded character that her ‘quirkiness’ doesn’t overshadow the other sides to her character.

Our most favourite scene so far from the drama and from the leading lady is definitely the scene where she sings along with Kyu Dong when he’s forced to sing in class. It was quite a hard scene to watch. He’s just so helpless and sad as he sings and you’re watching it desperately wishing that someone would help him and then Se Yi starts singing. It’s just so unexpected that our eyes were glued to the screen. The scene was transformed from this desperate, pathetic moment into something powerful and hopeful. Her joining in changed the meaning of it all. It went from a bully’s punishment to something amazing to witness.

The love rival and possible bromance with Seol Chan is Seon Woo. Once again, the writer didn’t really deviate away from the norm when creating his character. He’s smart, handsome, popular and incredibly kind to the leading lady. He’s practically Ji Hoo sunbae from Boys before Flower.

We like how he’s witty and doesn’t allow Seol Chan or others to take advantage of him. Also he has the capability of winning the leading lady. For us that is a major must for any creditable love rival.

We really don’t care about his role as a love rival, for us it’s all about his potential bromance with Seol Chan. Their banter is hilarious and you know that they just want to make up and be best buds again. What made them stop being friends?? Why are there always misunderstandings in Kdramas?

Another scene we loved was the scene where they played the piano together. It was just such a sweet moment for the group. Their bromantic chemistry really shone through and made us smile.

The thing we like about this drama is that these characters may differ in circumstances but when they are together they draw strength from each other’s company.

Although the drama is mostly light and fluffy there are moments between the characters that are filled with pathos and a desperate sense of despair that are just wonderful to watch. The characters may be stereotypical to an extent but their feelings and issues are all very human. The feeling of betrayal, confusion and longing is all very apparent in this drama and is conveyed really well in these characters that we’ve grown so fond of. We understand them on a deeper level than we thought we would have when we started the drama. We’re thankful that the writer isn’t shoving the message down our throats that these kids are hurting but instead manages to get the balance just right.

For us the musical battle is simply a backdrop and the real show is the small moments and conversations between the group as they all individually try and get through their own personal demons. Without fail each episode has managed to make us smile, cheer and hurt for these characters. As each episode passes, it just keeps getting better for us as viewers. We’re just gutted that it only has 12 episodes!